


If Found, Please Return to Barney C., Room 212

by apolloreyes



Category: Half Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware
Genre: Autistic Benrey (Half-Life), Body Horror, Gen, Horror, Identity Issues, Loss of Identity, M/M, Trans Benrey, Trapped in VR, Trapped in a video game, Video Game Mechanics, also i know nothing about the original half life nor VR sorry, askblog prologue fic, benrey's real name is barney calhoun but he's not. half life barney calhoun, dombinic also developed more than half of the AU so thank him, real life gordon and half life gordon are two different people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:08:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26591929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apolloreyes/pseuds/apolloreyes
Summary: Barney's always loved Half Life, so when he sees a VR headset that comes with a port of the original Half Life, he couldn't NOT buy it. Too bad you shouldn't buy an unauthorized port of a video game from a company that you've never heard of and has no records of even existing.
Comments: 32
Kudos: 133





	1. Chapter 1

Barney had always been a fan of the Half Life series. So much so, that now the most expensive thing he owned was a VR headset with his name and address scribbled on the side in sharpie that he bought just to play some bootleg VR port of the original Half Life. The thought of someone seeing his name and dorm address on the headset and being kind enough to actually return it instead of just taking it for themselves was probably wishful thinking, but by the time he realized it, he had already finished writing it. Who knows, maybe seeing his name on it could guilt trip any attempted thief.

He had already bought the headset nearly a month ago, an impulse purchase fueled by the little “Included with a Brand New VR Port of Half Life!” sticker lazily stuck onto the box. The fact that the sticker was already peeling off, plus the fact that he had never heard of the company that made the headset, not to mention that Valve had never made any kind of announcement for a VR port, made it obvious that this was unauthorized and probably illegal. Wouldn’t surprise him if this was some kind of money laundering scheme. Not that Barney cared. More Half Life was more Half Life, regardless of who was making it and for what purpose.

It was now a month after he bought it, the headset and motion controllers sat on the top shelf of his closet, still completely unused. He had opened it up, just to set up the motion sensors and actually install Half Life VR, but he had never actually turned it on. It’s not like he had planned on waiting this long, but homework and essays and projects and finals had completely swamped him, leaving no opportunity for a VR session. And from what he’d heard, you wanted to reserve a few hours for a VR game, just so you could get completely sucked into it, no distractions.

And now, on the Friday night after his last midterm, he had those few hours.

He took the headset and controllers off the top shelf, nearly shaking with excitement. He wasn’t normally an emotive guy, but the excitement from trying VR for the first time plus said first time being through his favorite childhood game nearly overwhelmed him. If he wasn’t holding the most expensive thing he owned he might’ve flapped his hands a little, just to let it all out. If this opportunity had shown itself a few years earlier, he would’ve called his best friend Gordon just to brag.

Thinking of Gordon couldn’t help but make him feel a bit melancholy. He had known the guy since Kindergarten. Hell, they’d come out and transitioned together. They would’ve sworn that they would be friends till the day they died. But, sadly, they went in different directions. Gordon went to some fancy STEM school across the country, and Barney went to a school with a 40% acceptance rate 2 hours away from their hometown. He’d thought about calling him almost every month, but felt that at this point they’d grown too far apart. It’d just be awkward, he told himself. He tried to turn his thoughts back to the headset, he didn’t want his first time in VR to be depressing.

Barney sighed and put on the headset, turning it on. He booted up Half Life VR, tapping his foot as he waited.

_ “Shit-!” _ he hissed. As soon as the game fully loaded, he felt a quick painful shock. “Knew this was some kinda money laundering scheme, cheap ass headset...” he mumbled, rubbing the back of his head that was still stinging.

His attention immediately switched to the game as the first cutscene loaded in. The iconic intro scene which... was  _ very _ different from what he remembered. First off, he wasn’t alone in the tram. Every seat was filled with NPCs using the guard model, and a few were standing too. This really  _ was _ an unauthorized copy, he thought to himself. The intro voice lines seemed to be the same, but for some reason there was no text on screen. No opening credits, no “Gordon Freeman, Male, 27” etc. 

“You alright, Benrey? You seem off today.”

He was pulled out of his thoughts by the guard sitting next to him. “Wuh?” he mumbled, still not entirely sure the guard was talking to him.

“You just seem to be in a mood. Not really like you. That’s all.”   
  
“You- You got the wrong guy, dude. Name’s not Benrey,” he tried to tell the guard, feeling kind of silly since he was just talking to himself in his room. “You thinkin’ of Barney?” he asked. The game shouldn’t know his real name to begin with, but maybe it was just reading his computer’s info. Some Doki Doki Literature Club type shit.

The guard laughed (or, well, made a laughing noise, since his shitty model didn’t change expression). “Good to know you’re still in a joking mood, Benrey. Was worried something happened.” He clapped his back (Did he feel that? No, of course not. The brain is just really vulnerable to suggestion. Like in those simulator rides at theme parks).

“Ha… Yeah… You got me...” he murmured, not wanting to argue with the miscellaneous guard. 

He looked out the window again, feeling like the tram cutscene was a lot longer than normal. Another odd thing was that G-Man was missing from the other tram. Did the developers just… forget about that? Seems like a pretty weird oversight. Was he even playing Half Life, or was this some weird Half Life Guard Simulator made by some really intense Barney Calhoun fan? 

The tram stopped, and all of the guard NPCs started making their way to the doors, taking out their IDs. Barney supposed he should take out his ID, and when he looked down to get it, he realized that he was using the guard model, not Freeman’s. Maybe this really was some Barney Calhoun fangame. He took out his ID, which made him blink to make sure what he was looking at was real.

The ID had the regular guard model for the picture, but the name was just… Benrey repeating over and over again, going completely off the card. It might not have even had an end, but trying to find the end just gave him a migraine. 

Luckily, the weird glitched ID seemed good enough for the NPC, who let him off the tram. He wasn’t exactly sure what to do other than try and play Half Life normally, so that’s what he did. It was odd hearing the NPCs refer to him as “Benrey” and talk about Gordon Freeman as if he wasn’t there, when he was supposed to  _ be  _ Gordon Freeman. These all seemed like the original Half Life voice actors too, but they couldn’t be, right? Just a really good impersonation. He couldn’t think of any other explanation.

Aside from the odd voice lines, the game continued as normal. At least, until he tried to get through the Security Clearance Level 3 door.

“The hell do you think you’re doing, Benrey?!” the guard positioned there demanded.

“I- Wuh-?”

“You know you don’t have clearance past that point. You have absolutely no reason to be anywhere near that door. You know your post.”

“Wait- I don’t-”

“I don’t want to hear any excuses. Get back to your post.”

Barney huffed, knowing there was no use trying to persuade the guard. “Sir yes sir,” he mumbled sarcastically. 

He wasn’t sure where exactly to go, so he leaned against a wall as soon as he was out of the other guard’s sight.

Wait.

He… leaned against a wall. 

Jesus, he had no idea how immerse VR could be. He should probably take a break for his own mental health. He reached up to take off his headset and-

There was nothing there.

He just felt his face. He wasn’t holding any controllers either. 

What the fuck was going on…?

He immediately ran to the locker room, the newly felt weight of the security vest making it more difficult.

He made a beeline for the mirror, part of him already knowing what he was going to see.

Barney Calhoun, 20 year old college student with an undeclared major, wearing a low poly security uniform and helmet. No VR headset or controllers in sight. No way out of the game.

* * *

The headset sat innocently on the floor, the words “If found, return to Barney C., room 212” the last evidence of Barney Calhoun’s existence.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barney tries to come to terms with his situation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for self harm, it's the paragraph between "Maybe if he pinched himself he'd wake up." and "He shook his head."

Barney had no idea what to do. None of the NPCs would respond to him, aside from repeating the same “Hello, Benrey!” over and over again. If he was any less grounded to reality he might’ve  _ believed  _ that that was his name. 

He supposed the only thing to do was wait for Gordon Freeman to show up. He really hoped that was just another NPC and he wouldn’t have to wait for another player. He couldn’t imagine that the chances of someone going into his room and playing the game were very high. 

He slid down the wall, bringing his knees to his chest. This  _ had _ to be some kind of nightmare- or maybe he ate something spiked- or maybe he was just in a really immersive daydream. This couldn’t be real. People don’t get trapped inside video games. That’s something out of a bad creepypasta. The worst that can happen when you buy a shady VR headset should be wasting your money, not getting trapped in a low poly hell. 

He wasn’t normally an emotive guy, but he couldn’t help burying his head into his knees and crying. Maybe by the time he stopped and lifted up his head, he’d be back in his dorm room. 

He looked up. Same hallway. Same empty NPCs. Still wearing the same dumbass security vest. Maybe if he pinched himself he’d wake up.

But no matter how much he harmed himself, all the way from pinching to ramming his head against a wall to even shooting himself in the hand. Still here. He had healed really fast, which was odd. Did he have god mode on? He might’ve activated a few cheats when he first installed the game, but his mind was really foggy. If he did activate it, then there really was no way out. Not even through death.

He shook his head. There’s no need to go  _ there _ , Barney thought to himself, Gordon Freeman should show up soon, and the game will continue as normal.

* * *

The minutes turned into hours, the hours turned into days, and the days turned into weeks. Still no sign of Freeman. Luckily for him, the lights dimmed every 12 hours, so he had some kind of day/night cycle. Barney had no idea how accurate it was, but it was something real. Something to hold onto. Some kind of normalcy.

He wondered how time was passing outside of the game. Had people noticed he was missing? Even if they did, it’s not like they would check the VR headset. At this point, his only hope would be for the headset to be sold on Craigslist or something and for the purchaser to play it and be lucky enough to be put into Gordon Freeman’s role. Thinking about it, the chances of that happening were one in a million. He was completely fucked. 

“God fucking damnit,” Barney mumbled to himself, fiddling with the gun. The gun that never seemed to run out of bullets or need to be reloaded. Maybe he really had activated god mode. 

_ Bang! _

Before he knew what was happening, the gun had accidentally fired and hit one of the scientists. He thinks the model’s name was… Slick?

_ Looks a lot like Tommy, _ he thought to himself.  _ Wait- Who the hell is Tommy? _

He looked at the corpse of the scientist. All of a sudden, the game felt a lot more  _ real _ . The models weren’t low poly, the textures- they couldn’t even be called textures at this point, they just looked normal. Like something you’d see in real life. Was his mind really going or was the game actually changing around him?

At that moment, the weight of what he did hit him. He just  _ killed _ someone. Barney Calhoun was a fucking murderer. He tried to tell himself that it wasn’t a real person, just a mindless NPC, but he just couldn’t convince himself. He looked down at his hands-  _ Blood, so much blood- How did it even get there? He wasn’t close to To- the scientist when the gun went off _ \- 

He made his way to the locker room, partially hoping that by the time he went back to his spot the scientist would despawn. He tried to wash his hands, but no matter how hard he scrubbed, the blood wouldn’t go away. It wouldn’t come off his uniform either. The smell was almost overwhelming- _ damn sensory issues _ \- but he didn’t have another uniform.

Barney looked over and saw another guard NPC. There was a security baton on one of the locker room benches. An idea popped into his head.

* * *

After knocking out the guard and stealing his uniform, he looked into the mirror.  _ The blood was still there- Why the fuck was it still there?!  _ It really felt like this game was trying to be as fucked up as possible. Was this hell? Had the shock from the headset actually killed him?

He shook his head and made his way back to his spot, hoping he’d just get used to the smell until the blood despawned. Upon arriving at his spot, he groaned.

The corpse was still there too. 

Because why wouldn’t it be there? Nothing else had gone right.

“Can’t I have one fucking thing?!” he snapped to no one in particular. “I don’t- I don’t understand. I just wanna go home,” he whimpered. God, he felt fucking pathetic. 

* * *

The blood despawned after a few days, but the corpse never did. It started fucking decomposing. He stuffed it into one of the lockers that shouldn’t even have been able to open. The locker belonged to some dude named Coomer, who was a developer if he remembered correctly.

Gordon always thought that was the funniest thing in the world. Barney would always tease him about his eight year-old sense of humor.

He thought about Gordon a lot.

He used some extra clothes from the locker room to plug the holes on the sides of the door in an attempt to completely block out the smell. It wasn’t perfect, but it did the job. After a few months, he could almost forget about killing Tom-  _ Seriously, who the fuck is Tommy- _ that guy.

Until he woke up one morning and saw a skeleton standing over him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barney learns a new ability, he's also gay as fuck too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for suicide ideation, it's the definition of the light blue sweet voice

Barney would hate to admit it, but he screamed. Loudly. The skeleton didn’t respond. It just stood in front of his makeshift bed, looking down at him.

“Can you fuckin’ go away? I get that you’re s’posed to be a physical manifestation of my guilt or whatever, but I can only take so much bullshit at once.”

Nothing.

And the nothingness continued. The skeleton didn’t even move, it just always appeared in his line of sight somehow.

You’d think after a few months he’d get used to it.

He didn’t get used to it.

“Listen, buddy, is there something you fuckin’ want? Or are you just here to torment your old pal Ben- Barney?!” he snapped. He’d yell at the skeleton a lot, just to feel some kind of control over the situation. This time was different.

As he yelled, some strange dark blue orbs came out of his mouth.

**_Blue means ‘I hate you’._ **

Where the hell did that come from? Although Barney had to admit that it wasn’t exactly inaccurate. Was this some weird mod he accidentally activated? He felt like he saw it in some Gmod video before, but he couldn’t think of where exactly it was from.

**_Black Mesa Sweet Voice_ **

No, it definitely wasn’t that, but… it did oddly fit. Maybe he’d call it the Black Mesa Sweet Voice, just for convenience’s sake. He wasn’t planning on relying on the strange voice in his head for everything. 

* * *

The skeleton hadn’t gone away during the next few months. No matter where he went, it was always there. The NPCs didn’t even acknowledge it. They would even go _through_ it when it was in their way. Maybe he _was_ hallucinating.

“Listen, buddy, you’ve fuckin’ tormented me everyday since you got here. Can’t you just give me,” he sneered, “one FUCKING DAY OF PEACE?!” He rammed his head against the wall, but

Where was he?

Did he just… clip through the map?

He looked around. He could see through the walls, but surrounding the building was just… a black void. Nothing. Was he noclipping? At this point, he didn’t know what cheats he’d activated. It’d be so long since he’d installed the game. If only he could go back in time and throw that stupid fucking headset out the window. 

Funny enough, one of his most recurring nightmares was having to watch himself install and set up the game, and no matter how much he screamed at himself, he couldn’t stop it. He was completely fucking helpless.

Barney brought his head back through the wall with ease. At least something was going right. With the way things were, his head being stuck outside of the map would be one of the least surprising things to happen to him.

* * *

Barney practiced noclipping for a few weeks. It was difficult to control, but at least it was something to do. Sometimes he’d fall through the floor and get stuck, but other than that he didn’t have too many mistakes that screwed him over for a while. Noclipping became one of the few joys he had at this point. It was something new after a year of monotony, plus…

The skeleton couldn’t noclip with him. After months of that skeleton plaguing him, he finally had a break.

Barney began to enjoy just floating in the void, with the only light in sight being the Black Mesa Sweet Voice. He couldn’t control it the way he could control the clipping, but he could hum to produce some blue sweet voice that was _incredibly_ calming. In any other situation, this would be a pretty nice stim. 

It was on one of his days floating in the void that he realized it was his birthday.

Huh.

21 years old.

At least, he would be. Barney wasn’t exactly sure if he was aging in this thing. Not like there was much of a difference between being 20 and 21. Maybe his hair would start greying in a few years. Maybe old age would take him in the end. Unless god mode prevented that and he just aged and aged and aged until he was a shell of a human being with full consciousness that couldn’t move.

No, Barney, don’t spiral again. It’s your birthday, he told himself, we can wait for tomorrow to start spiralling. 

It sucks spending your 21st birthday alone. It’s not like he was planning on going out to a bar. Those were too overwhelming, and the last time he went to one (fake ID provided by his then-roommate) he had a meltdown. In high school he and Gordon would talk about how they’d spend their 21st birthdays. Gordon’s was a few months ago. Barney hoped Gordon had a better time than he’s having. 

_Hey, catch me later, I'll buy you a beer._

_Now... about that beer I owed ya!_

Now he really could buy Gordon a beer. Oh, the irony. If he wasn’t in an absolute nightmare scenario this would’ve been funny. 

He sadly huffed out a few notes of light blue sweet voice.

**_Light blue like the sky means I want to die._ **

* * *

Barney opened the locker labeled ‘Freeman’ for the first time. He was honestly surprised it didn’t take him longer to look.

It was… odd, to say the least.

First off, the baby picture in there was different. He knew the locker originally had a baby picture in it, probably one of the developer’s kids, but this wasn’t the same picture. He wasn’t an expert on baby pictures or anything, but he knew this was a new picture. Considering his situation, it’s probably not what he should be focusing on, but he couldn’t help it. He picked up the photo and saw writing on the back.

_Joshua Freeman, one month old_

Ok, now he knows the game’s fucking with him. Gordon Freeman, the protagonist, never had a fucking kid. Wait-

_Gordon’s grandpa was named Joshua._

The day Gordon’s, his Gordon, grandpa died, was one of the clearest memories he had. They were 11 years old, playing video games on Gordon’s PS2 when he got the news. He remembered asking if Gordon wanted to be alone, but the other boy just shook his head and hugged him tightly, clinging onto him for dear life. He held Gordon for what felt like hours, just rubbing his back and listening to him talk about his grandfather. Considering how close Gordon was to his grandpa, it wouldn’t surprise Barney in the slightest if he named his kid after the man. 

But… why would it be here? Is the game fucking with him again, or is this a generic hallucination?

He looked back to the locker, nearly dropping the baby photo upon seeing what was originally under it.

It was a picture of his Gordon. The same soft curly hair pulled into a messy ponytail, the same freckles that he’d count when class got boring, the same bright brown eyes he would get lost in…

God, he still had it bad, didn’t he?

But… why was there a picture of Gordon in here? It wasn’t even an old picture from when he last saw him, he looked older. Older than him, which- while yes, Gordon was a few months older than him, this Gordon looked to be in his late 20s. 

Then it came to him.

Barney was so fucking fixated on a stupid high school crush that his brain had imagined Gordon rushing in to save him.

He was that fucking desperate.

* * *

A year. An entire year had passed since he played that stupid VR game. There was no sign of Gordon Freeman. He had to start repeating his memories in the mirror every morning, just to keep a firm grasp on his identity. The game kept trying to force this weird fucking ‘Benrey’ identity on him. Oddly enough, it wasn’t that different from his own, just the name and the fact that instead of going to college he became a security guard at Black Mesa.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to fall into that role-

No, bad Barney, bad. Don’t let this shitty game win.

The lighting was glitching, though. About a month before the anniversary, when he looked in the mirror there was a weird shadow over his eyes. The sclera had an odd yellow tint too. He was also super pale, but that could’ve just been due to the fact that he hadn’t seen natural light in a year. Maybe he’d die from a lack of vitamin D.

His memory was failing him too, which bothered him more than any lighting issues. It started small, like not being able to remember what elementary school he went to. But the missing memories got bigger scarily fast. He couldn’t even remember his parents’ names. He needed to get out before this game completely took over his mind.

Suddenly, an idea came to him.

If the only way to get out of the game was to beat it, he now could clip past that annoying guard NPC that yelled at him whenever he approached that door.

He could clip right to Xen.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barney goes home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for body horror, starting at "When BenreyBarneyBenreyBarneyBenreyBarney woke up" and ending at "It took half a year"

It took Barney nearly a week to mentally prepare himself for Xen. He didn’t know why, but he got an awful feeling in his stomach whenever he thought about the planet. Probably just nerves. There was a lot that could go wrong with this plan, after all. He doesn’t exactly know where he’s going, what happens if he gets lost in the void? Even if someone else did play the game, he’d be completely unaware. Failure also daunted him. What if he got to Xen, defeated the final boss, then nothing? This was the first bit of hope he’d had in over a year, he’d almost rather just cling onto that hope instead of risking despair.

But no, Barney refused to give into that impulse. He was going to Xen, and he was going home.

He looked behind at the locker room one last time. At least he wouldn’t have to see that stupid fucking skeleton after this. He thought back to that picture of an older Gordon.  _ You don’t need Gordon to be your knight in shining armor, dude _ , he told himself,  _ but also when you get out of here you’re definitely going to give him a call, no more bullshit _ . He took a deep breath and stepped through the wall.

The void felt different this time. He felt like something was calling out to him. Was it Xen? Maybe this was what he was supposed to do. He had absolutely zero trust in the game, but this calling was his only hint towards where Xen was. Humming some blue sweet voice to light his way, he went in the direction of the calling. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After walking for what felt like days, Barney finally saw a bit of color in the dark abyss. That had to be Xen, it just  _ had _ to be.

It’s odd how despite walking for a few days straight with no sleep, he felt fine. Maybe it was the adrenaline, or maybe time passed differently in the void. Barney was never one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

He started running to Xen, nearly crying from happiness. He even let out some silver sweet voice.

**_Chrome means I’m going home._ **

The small dot that was Xen got bigger and bigger until he was just outside of it. It was empty, which was odd, but he assumed the Nihilanth would spawn when he actually went into the map. He took out the gun. The same gun that he hadn’t touched since he accidentally killed that Tommy-  _ still don’t know who that is _ \- lookalike. He didn’t want to end up dealing with another skeleton, after all.

But that doesn’t matter anymore. He’s getting out. He’s going home.

He stepped into the Xen area. Nothing changed. For a few moments he thought he had gone all this way for nothing.

Suddenly, he fell to the ground, and the world turned black.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When  ~~ BenreyBarneyBenreyBarneyBenrey ~~ Barney woke up, he knew something was wrong. He felt like he was going to puke, he couldn’t think straight, and he could barely move. Suddenly he felt a sharp burst of pain.

To Barney’s horror, his body began to twist and reshape into something that couldn’t be called human. He couldn't even hear the disgusting sound of bones cracking and muscles pulling apart over his own shrieks. He wasn’t even sure if he was corporeal. The screaming only stopped for a moment when he suddenly lacked a mouth to scream with. A few moments later, the monster that he refused to believe was him was completely covered in mouths, all screaming and letting out white sweet voice.

**_White means fright._ **

He tried to call for help, but it came out as an horrifying chorus of roars. From his many eyes he could see several faces attempting to break through. They were the most human-looking part of him. Him, the person known as “Barney” felt more and more distant from the consciousness possessing the being. With each second that passed, the name Barney began to lose its significance. All it knew now was that it was in pain, and the pain wasn’t going away.

_ I want to go home…  _ There was a chorus of whimpers.

**You are home.**

Who was that? It looked around for an answer, letting out green sweet voice.

**_Green to tan means I don’t understand._ **

The voice spoke again, almost calming.

**You are home, Benrey.**

“Ben… rey…” it tried to say with its incomplete vocal cords. The name Benrey… it felt right. It felt natural. It couldn’t imagine being called anything different. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It took half a year for Benrey to figure out how to get his form back into something manageable. He wasn’t sure why he picked the form he did. He thought it might’ve been what he had before, but his memory was really hazy.

He remembered being captured by Black Mesa when he was a child. Eventually, Black Mesa let him be a security guard for some reason. He somehow got back to Xen? Video games were also involved in his memory in some form. He wasn’t exactly sure how. He had a friend named Tommy who visited him while he was confined to a cell. A name stuck out amongst everything else though.

Gordon Freeman.

The memories with Gordon were incredibly vague, except for a few of them playing in the mud and sand, simultaneously somehow. He assumed he must’ve known him before Black Mesa captured him. Sand and mud weren’t exactly common here.

All he knew was that thinking of Gordon made him let out a mass of pink to blue sweet voice.

**_Pink to blue means I really like you._ **

Kinda cringe.

What was more cringe was how  _ boring _ everything was. The only company he had were his skeletons. His favorite was the one he named Josh. He wasn’t really sure where the name came from, but it felt important. The perfect name for his second in command. Benrey even spawned a PS3 for them to play Heavenly Sword on, but Josh was, unfortunately, still just a fucking skeleton with no consciousness. It was still fun to pretend, though, to pass the time until Feetman showed up.

Benrey was in an odd position where he partially knew that this was a game and that he was waiting for the player to show up, but he truly believed that his memories were real. The two beliefs contradict each other, yet that didn’t really bother him. He was ok with his memories not really making sense.

He just didn’t care.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've decided to go in a different direction w/ this AU. This is gonna remain on it's own as sort of an introduction to Benrey's side of things, but I'm writing Gordon's POV through an askblog! It's hlvrsgai on tumblr

The next few years went by without any real incidents. Benrey eventually got bored of fucking with the NPCs and would just spend most of his time in the void. He’d occasionally visit Xen, just to hear another voice. He didn’t go often though, just because it acted like an overbearing parent whenever he went. Cringe.

Nothing changed until five years and six months after… He wasn’t sure why he felt that the date was significant, but it never left his mind.

Benrey was hanging outside the map when he saw someone get off the tram. Weird. No one got off the tram. He’d memorized the movements of the NPCs at that point, and none of them ever went on or off the tram. The tram didn’t even move, for fuck’s sake.

As soon as he saw the figure get off the tram, a few bursts of sweet voice that went from white to blue escaped his mouth.

Tommy.

He flew into the map, stopping right in front of Tommy, his face showing an uncharacteristic smile. “Tommyyyyy, my duuuuude, what the fuck is uuuuuup?”

Tommy laughed, giving no indication that he thought anything off. “Benrey! It’s- It’s good to see you! You don’t usually run out to see me, though. Did something happen?”

Benrey shook his head. “Nah bro, just happy to see you. Been forever since we talked, almost thought you forgot about me.”

“Forever?” Tommy frowned. “We- We had work yesterday. You talked to me about the Playstation 4.”

Benrey blinked. Did… Tommy not know that he was alone for almost 6 years? Did the whole “six years in hell by himself” not actually happen? He could barely remember the day before he was left alone. Was that really just yesterday for Tommy?

“Well, any time away from my best bro feels like forever,” he joked in an attempt to change the subject. He wasn’t alone anymore. That’s what mattered. Who was he to question shit?

He followed Tommy into the labs, rambling to him about Slime Rancher. It was odd, having someone to talk to after being alone for so long. He almost forgot how to talk to people. But that’s over now. It’s all going to be ok.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Things seemed to be back to normal- at least, what Benrey assumed was normal before the Groundhog’s day hellscape. Most people- NPCs- whatever- were still unresponsive outside of a few repeated phrases. There were a few people, other than Tommy, who could actually talk. Doctor Coomer, Doctor Bubby, and Doctor Darnold. He didn’t know them well, he felt like their science shit was too far out of his league, but he was sure he knew them before. He spent the most time with Darnold, purely because of how often Tommy spent time with him. He’d never admit it, but he followed Tommy around like a lost puppy. He didn’t like being a security guard, it was boring, plus no one was actually trying to do anything illegal, so it’s not like he had any job to do other than sit around. He eventually got into a routine, which was nice. He liked change, but he also liked having something stable to hold onto.

The routine ended up lasting for a little less than a year. That’s when shit hit the fan, and Benrey wasn’t sure if it was a good kind of shit or not.

He knew things were off the moment the day started. The NPCs were no longer repeating the same “Hello, Benrey!” or other sciencey bullshit lines. They started talking about a test. Benrey didn’t really keep track of what science was going on. It just didn’t interest him. What had interested him was the fact that the NPCs were talking about it. The NPCs never acknowledged… anything, really, aside from occasionally acknowledging the existence of him, Tommy, Darnold, Bubby, or Coomer. 

What also piqued Benrey’s interest was just how familiar the dialogue was. Mega deja vu. He felt like he’d heard this dialogue before, but he couldn’t piece where. The memory of the dialogue felt just out of his reach. He got an uneasy feeling in his stomach. He couldn’t believe it.

For the first time in recent memory, something actually bothered Benrey.


End file.
